Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Not a bad price at all on a mini-PCIe solid-state drive. These are intended for the Eee PC S101, but will work with any machine that can take mini-PCIe add-ons. https://gizmodo.com/hands-on-asus-eee-s101-just-as-slim-and-air-y-in-perso-5066842 As JKOnTheRun points out, these are not the blazing-est SSDs you’ll find (they’re rated at 90 MB/s read and 55 MB/s write), but for…
Scientists at the University of Tokyo are readying these weirdly beautiful robots to study fantastic primitive life forms fighting against each other. But why do they look like human flesh shredders? The robots are being developed from designs by profesor Yoichiro Kawaguchi, who simulated them in a 3D environment. They will be enabled with sensors,…
Yes, this MacBook Mini concept by designer Isamu Sanada looks a lot like Sony’s Vaio P. But as I’m sure Sanada will tell you, its tri-fold style is pure brochure, baby. https://gizmodo.com/sony-vaio-p-review-5131637 Featuring a 10-inch extra wide screen and a folding (detaching?) style, the MacBook Mini offers users both a keyboard and a trackpad—simultaneously if…
It won’t instantly give you Jason Chen’s tactical blogging situation room, but Buffalo’s 7-inch USB display does something nice: it swivels vertically, making it even better for a secondary IM display on your desk. https://gizmodo.com/lightning-review-vidock-gfx-display-enhancer-adds-two-5031028 For now it looks like the FTD-W71 is Japan-only, but hopefully it won’t stay that way. For everyone else, there’s…
Designer Steve Lee didn’t really care for the new Apple keyboards, what with their use of two colors. So he decided to make his a little more…sparse. Since he’s a touchtyper, like any true nerd, he didn’t need to see the letters. One can of white spraypaint later, and he has, as he calls it,…
There are a slew of GPS rangefinders out there for golfers, but not many are built with all the style, portability and one-touch interface of a premium touchscreen smartphone. The OnPar features a 3.5-inch screen and a reasonable thickness of .63 inches, making it just a tad stubbier than an iPhone. It stores up to…
Love blowing cash on stupid, useless crap in the middle of the recession just to show how rich you are? Want to meet other people like yourself? MyCentrl is the $999.99 iPhone app for you. Cleverly, MyCentrl’s developers only put up a single screenshot, revealing buttons for “people” and “chat,” and fail to describe the…
This is the Ares I-X Launch Abort System, the mini-rocket that will be the tip of the main vehicle, responsible for saving the astronauts’ life in case of a major malfunction at launch. This test unit was loaded into a C-5 transport to the Kennedy Space Center, where it will be launched this summer to…
A new patent app from Sony reveals a pretty interesting inkjet printer that takes design cues from the Microsoft Surface. Just looking at the “Image forming device, having an ejection tray, and a display is mounted to a cover” pretty much explains the premise. You place the camera on the screen and your photos are…
Adorably-mascotted Firefox Mobile ‘Fennec’ is on its way to an early February release for the Windows Mobile-powered HTC Touch Pro, according to a post on the project’s developer wiki. The quote isn’t gospel, but it’s a pretty solid indicator: We are targeting a Milestone release for the first week of February, targeting the HTC Touch…
“Play To” is the ability to right-click a media file in Windows 7’s Media Player and send it to any networked gadget appearing in the pop-up menu. It’s sweet now, but it could be huge. The key is that you have to have compatible networked “digital media renderers” at the receiving end. Right now, the…
Acer has confirmed that they will announce ‘smartphones’ at the Mobile World Congress on February 16th. Unfortunately that’s as detailed as they feel like getting right now. [PocketLint]
“The foreplay, will now begin!” UPDATE: It’s a hoax. https://gizmodo.com/bizarre-lovetrainer-headset-actually-an-elaborate-sexy-5141739 Made by Sega Toys (oh, how far the mighty have fallen) and resembling company’s Body Trainer exercise aid almost exactly, this odd little gadget measures your heart rate, providing you with helpful messages during the course of whatever undoubtedly depressing sexual episode you’ve decided it…
Inspired by the success of the Canon Liveview DSLR video hack, Olivier Giroux repeated the trick for his Nikon D700. As was the case with the Canons, it works—sort of. The limitation are essentially identical—necessarily short recordings due to an sensor-preserving liveview shutoff, the need to be tethered to a PC, the limited output quality…
After the BlackBerry Bold’s epically delayed launch on AT&T and the Storm’s epically borked launch everywhere, RIM needs 2009 to be better than 2008. The T-Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8900 is a good way to start. We looked at a close-to-production model Curve 8900 a few months ago (albeit one marked for the Death Star). So…
T-Mobile’s just launched the Shadow (Shadow II), the successor to the HTC Shadow, which features a customized UI on top of Windows Mobile 6.1. It’s quite similar to the original in just about all respects. https://gizmodo.com/t-mobile-htc-shadow-finally-emerges-looking-damn-good-316068 The scroll wheel’s still there, and the T-Mobile customized UI is still there, the sliding SureType half-QWERTY keyboard is…
Apple recently showed off their new iPhoto’s facial recognition feature, but said it only can recognize human faces, not animals. MacLife tested it out and proved Apple wrong: iPhoto can tell kitties apart. [MacLife] https://gizmodo.com/apple-revamps-ilife-for-09-79-for-iphoto-facial-recog-5124196
One advantage Windows 7 has over OS X is that you can stream to your Xbox 360 without the need for third-party software. And though it’s still rough around the edges, it mostly functions. For those unaware, there are two ways you can stream media to your Xbox: through media center or through your windows…
I guess this is it: Bug Labs’ BUG has graduated from weird modular little thingie with not much use for most to weird modular little thingie with not much use for most but plays Quake. Yeah, it moves, it fires, it can be controlled with a guitar. [Community Bug Las]
Our buddy Joel from BBG took a field trip to Electro-Harmonix’s main lab and test facilities, where they design their legendary music effects pedals and maintain the world’s largest vacuum tube business. Sure there isn’t a whole lot of mainstream demand for vacuum tubes these days, what with those fancy solid state electronics everybody’s been…
